Psychological Skills Training

October 12, 2023, Sports Psychology In-class notes Psychological Skills Training - - - Increasing self-awareness o How people cope with anxiety is more important than how much anxiety they experience.  Neil Armstrong example  Depends on how you deal with it. o How people react to their arousal levels  People had to be hooked up to IV’s and people were deceived as to what the study was about- started infusing adrenaline through the IV. o When we do not have an explanation for arousal we come up with our own. o Getting rid of all your nervousness is not the goal.  Athletes will relax before, and closer to the game they will attempt to bring up their arousal to levels they are used to, to up performance. o Athletes who perceive anxiety as supportive perform better than those who do not. o State and trait anxiety  If they see that they have control it does not impede what they are trying to do o Biggest buffer against stress  Wanting to have a sense of control is what buffers you against stress.  Not literally having control but you thinking you have control. o Unexpected events jolt us out of our plans and can cause confusion.  Build our skills to adapt to these unexpected events. Coping o Problem Focus coping.  Dealing with our anxiety or stress by altering our environment  3 exams on one day, saying you will start studying early, go to professors to ask if you can take the test another day- coping with the stress by changing your environment. o Emotion Focus coping.  Focus on managing our reaction to the outside world.  Presented with situations that we cannot alter.  Manage your internal state of emotions.  Calm yourself down first. o Want to focus on how people do not perform these clearly. Anxiety Reduction Techniques- somatic o Somatic- psychological stress leads to physical symptoms. o Techniques that control your body. o Your thoughts alone can trigger enormous amounts of anxiety. o Relaxation techniques Progressive relaxation  Where you learn to tense and relax specific muscles- training yourself to identify the difference  Muscles can be relaxed and tense at the same time.  Breath control  Want to learn how to breathe in a way that optimizes the amount of oxygen you bring into your body with minimal effort.  When you are breathing shallow from your ribcage there is less oxygen in your body, starving your brain of it (may start seeing dots, getting dizzy)  Want to breathe through your diaphragm.  You want to engage in a 1 to 2 in and out ratio. o Your exhale is twice as long as your inhale. o This slows down your heartbeat. o You will run out of energy quickly.  Bio feedback  Teaches us to gain control over things we think do not have control over normally. Techniques with cognition o How to calm down our thoughts  Our bodies slow down. o This is where we focus on our thinking. o Relaxation response  Form of mediation that removes any spiritual or religious element from it. o Autogenic training  A form of self-hypnosis  Sit in a comfortable chair and imagine things like heaviness and warmth. o Meditation  Stopping your thoughts  Allows us to observe those thoughts.  We get slightly disconnected from anything we can look at, anything we can look at is not you.  Our thoughts are not who we are.  We control 5% of our thoughts.  We do not stop our thoughts we observe our thoughts.  Focus on what we are doing despite distractions. o Mindfulness  Is when you are being present in the moment nonjudgmentally. Stress o Players start to understand their own stress factors.  - -